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University workers begin nation wide protest Ahead of Monday Strike

Another round of strike is looming in the nation’s universities as the leadership of the non-teaching staff of the universities have begun mobilisation of their members nationwide to begin a nationwide strike on Monday, July 15, 2019 over alleged breach of agreements by the government.

The leadership of the non teaching staff told newsmen on Friday in Abuja that top on the list of grievances was the exclusion of its members from the workings of the National University Pension Company (NUPENCO) solely operated by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and the allocation of 80 percent of the money released by the federal government as earned allowances to ASUU while the three non academic staff unions got the remaining 20 percent.

The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and the Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU) operating under the Joint Action Committee said they were rejecting the 20 percent earned allowance allocated to it and called on the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency, release N30 billion to the non teaching staff as earned allowance for the period of 2009 to 2016.

SSANU President, Comrade Samson Ugwoke who spoke on behalf of the unions said the Federal Government should be prepared to meet its demands and called on its members to ensure full compliance with the directive in order to show its relevance to the university system.

He said: “The recent sharing of money where the money collected from the ministry of education signed by the director of tertiary education, allocating 80 per cent of the money to ASUU and only 20 per cent to the three non-teaching staff unions is not acceptable to us.

“We reject in total the 20 per cent allocated to our members, rather we demand from the federal government the sum of N30 billion as part of the earned allowance of non teaching staff from 2009 to 2016 l, and we call on government to hasten the audit of university earned allowances so that we will know how much is paid to who and how much remains.
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“The way and manner the money is being shared is contrary to any known accounting procedure or any known international best practice. It should be condemned by all, this house calls it a fraud and calls for investigation.
“We call and demand that the government should release as a matter of urgency, N30 billion for non-teaching staff.
“JAC has approved protests from the branches, protests at the zonal levels of our unions and mother of all protests in Abuja for three days before a deadline is given to the government for the mother of all strikes that will follow. The protest will commence on Monday 15th July 2019”.